Stalled OJR contract talks lead to teacher slowdown

SOUTH COVENTRY — The stalled contract negotiations between the Owen J. Roberts School District and its teachers union has gone public.

The teachers have been working without a contract since June 30 and the two sides have been negotiating, quietly for the most part, for 15 months.

However the failure to reach an agreement about wages has raised the stakes and the rhetoric in the matter and the teachers union have instructed their members to work only to the specific language of the expired contract and cease all extra and voluntary activities.

School Board President Douglas K. Hughes reacted by issuing a letter to the district Tuesday, which was also posted on the district web site, announcing that the teachers union had decided to “work to contract,” explaining they would “work only to the contractually obligated hours” and informing residents and taxpayers the union had asked their members “not to participate in any unpaid activities.”

Advertisement

“We are disappointed by the REA leadership team’s work to contract directive to their members,” Hughes wrote.

“Although disappointing, work to contract is a relatively routine action during prolonged contract negotiations,” wrote Hughes. “The administration and the school board will do its best to ensure that the education offered to our students will not change, although we may feel the impact as our professional teaching staff withdraw from unpaid activities. If this occurs, we are committed to minimizing any inconvenience and disruption to our students.”

Hughes cited a declining tax base due to assessment challenges, rising teacher pension costs and the cap on raising taxes, as the financial constraints which have prevented the district from meeting what he called the union’s “unsustainable” requests for salary increases and a greater share of health care costs.

“The REA continues to seek an unsustainable multi-year contract with the district,” Hughes wrote. “For its part, in January the district proposed a comprehensive multi-year contract proposal which would provide the teachers salary increases in each year of the contract as well as an enhancement in the current health care program currently offered.”

Roberts Education Association President Steve Raught responded with a statement on behalf of the teachers, which is also posted on the union’s Facebook page.

“As a result of these factors and the stalemate in negotiations, REA members have decided to keep their focus on their classrooms,” Raught wrote.

“We are not participating in the many, many volunteer activities that we have often done to assist administration and to offer more opportunities for OJR students beyond the classroom. It was not an easy decision and is not one that we took lightly,” he wrote. “We will continue to provide our students with an excellent education as we always have and will remain professional throughout this labor dispute.”

Raught explained that “two years ago the Roberts Education Association accepted a two-year contract that had no raises on the salary schedule for the life of that contract. This was well below where other districts were settling at the time. We did this because our district was in turmoil as a result of a dysfunctional school board and the recent termination of Dr. Myra Forrest. We felt that Owen J. Roberts deserved some normalcy, instead of a protracted labor dispute to add to the other issues that tarnished our school’s reputation.”

Noting that OJR has “re-bounded” since that time, Raught wrote that “our negotiations team has not found a public school in the state of Pennsylvania where the teachers shoulder a larger portion of their health care premium. The district refuses to share any risk that comes with rising premiums. Increases rest solely on the teachers. OJR is the only district that does not have a set percentage of the premium or a set dollar amount that the teachers pay. As a result, there were many years over the last decade where the teachers at OJR essentially had pay cuts because their premium share outpaced any pay raises that they may have received.”

The information in the comparison was culled from publicly available teacher contracts at area districts, according to an REA spokesperson.

Raught’s statement added that “Owen J. Roberts’s teachers also rank in the bottom in Chester County and the surrounding area in pay at the master’s degree level. A teacher at Owen J. Roberts with a master’s degree and more than 15 years of service makes an average of approximately $7,000 per year less than their peers in area schools.”

The REA comparison indicates that OJR teachers at “master’s level,” which is “the area where most career teachers spend the most time on the pay scale,” earn an average of $76,937.

By comparison, similar average salaries in Phoenixville are $89,878; $86,457 in Pottsgrove; $84,262 in Perkiomen Valley; $83,750 in Spring-Ford; $82,549 in Pottstown; $77,746 in Daniel Boone and $77,572 in Boyertown, the REA analysis shows.

According to teacherportal.com, which uses data from the National Education Association, the average Pennsylvania teacher’s salary is $60,760, ranking it 11th in the nation.

The average starting salary for a teacher in Pennsylvania is $41,192, the seventh-highest in the nation, according to the site.

According to an analysis last August by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, teacher pay in the “Philadelphia metropolitan area,” which includes Montgomery and Chester counties, is “significantly above the U.S. average,” with averages of $62,550 for secondary school teachers, $65,590 for middle school teachers, and $57,540 for elementary school teachers.

(Go to The Mercury’s Community Resources Blog at www.pottsmerc.com or http://bit.ly/teachsalarysearch, to use our searchable database of area educator salaries from the Pennsylvania Department of Education, and find out how much your child’s teachers are paid.)

But Owen J. Roberts cannot afford to increase pay for its share of medical benefits, according to Hughes.

“Unfortunately, however, because of the statutory Act 1 cap on school district expenditures, coupled with a declining tax base due to assessment appeals and rapidly increasing pension costs, coming to an economic compromise on wages and health care has been challenging as the REA continues to seek an unsustainable multi-year contract with the district,” wrote Hughes.

Raught countered that, “Owen J. Roberts is in a very healthy financial situation. The district has $53 million sitting in funds on an $85 million budget. They have over $4 million already set aside for future pension increases, they have $2.5 million in reserve in their self insurance fund, they even have an extra $2 million in case they have unexpected costs that would cause them to go over budget.”

Raught added that “the school district underestimates their revenue and overestimates their expenses by about $4 million each year. This amount has been as high as $8 million some years and as low as $2 million in others. The requests that have been made by the REA in health care and salaries are reasonable and can easily be afforded by the district.”

He said one thing leading to the stalemate is due in part to “the board’s reliance on their costly attorney” and gave a hint of things to come by concluding, “we believe it will be more productive to have a neutral party assist both sides in the negotiations if a settlement isn’t reached in the next few weeks.”

About the Author

Evan Brandt has worked for The Mercury since November 1997. His beat includes Pottstown, the surrounding townships and the Pottstown and Pottsgrove school districts, as well as other varied general topics like politics, the environment and education. Reach the author at ebrandt@pottsmerc.com
or follow Evan on Twitter: @PottstownNews.